


Paramount Paramour

by Inkspilled



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Relationships, Grief/Mourning, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Major Character Undeath, Men Crying, Not Beta Read, Temporary Character Death, The cheese factor is off the charts, Yen is supportive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:29:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23391751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkspilled/pseuds/Inkspilled
Summary: Death, Jaskier thinks, is a lot less romantic than he had hoped. While lovers dying in each others arms makes for terribly profitable ballads, he had hoped not to partake in that particular source material. Yet, here he is... almost. *Updated and finished, combined into 1 chapter*
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 11
Kudos: 304





	Paramount Paramour

Death, Jaskier thinks, is a lot less romantic than he had hoped. While lovers dying in each other's arms makes for terribly profitable ballads, he had hoped not to partake in that particular source material. Yet, here he is... almost; the lover’s arms part isn’t quite right. It’s close enough though, he can feel his cooling body leeching heat from Geralts' as he presses his hands to his wound. 

“I know it’s not worth it,” Jaskier wheezes against a pressure building in his chest that could be blood filling his lungs, could be Geralts' weight, or could be greif, he isn’t entirely sure. 

“What?” Geralt snaps, his hands frantically pawing over Jaskiers' bloody doublet. How could the blood be coming from _everywhere_? 

“Trying to stop the blood it’s-” a contraction in his diaphragm leaves Jaskier gasping for a horrible moment that feels like drowning, “it’s not worth it. Please stop it.” 

“Of course it’s worth it! Do you want to bleed out?”

Jaskier doesn’t grace that with a real answer, instead letting a smile turned grimace spread across his pallid face, “You haven’t stripped me of my doublet. If you thought there was a chance I’d live you’d have made rags of it already.” 

The sharp sound of Geralt unsheathing a dagger slices through the air and it makes Jaskiers' head throb. Eyes closed, every sensation heightened tenfold yet distant enough to be happening to another person, he feels the weight of a blade sliding under his shirt. The blade hesitates. 

“You like this doublet,” Geralts' voice feels like a balm.

“I do, I’m glad you remember.” 

The knife retreats, abandoned in sticky mud that is entirely too warm given the temperature of the rain that caused it. Someone could mistake if for clay in a few days, Jaksier muses absently, when the blood browns. He’s yanked out of his thoughts by a jostling that seems highly unnecessary. Blearily Jaskier opens his eyes, not having realized he’d closed them, and oh what a last view he has. 

The witcher’s hair cascades down his face, creating a curtain that blocks the world out leaving only black eyes and a silver halo to focus on. He could count Geralts' eyelashes, if he had the time. He already knows how many there are though, he’d stayed up one night admiring them in an inn, when the moonlight had turned them to tinsel and Geralt had been fast asleep. Really, the only difference between how they looked then, and how they look now is the distinct wetness that is gathing on them as the witcher furiously blinks.

“So, you will cry for me.” The words slips between Jaskiers' lips unbidden, quiet into the night. 

“Of course I’ll cry for you jaskier.” There’s an edge in Geralts' voice that almost makes Jaskier forget his own pain in favor of soothing Geralts'. 

“You didn’t kill me.” 

“You’re right, you’re not dead yet.” The words sound like a realization, a prayer, and Geralt makes to go back to fussing over the wound before Jaskier stops his hand.

“Even when I am, it’s not your fault. And though there’s nothing to forgive I know you’ll need to hear it, so I forgive you.” Words are becoming more difficult as a warm haze descends on Jaskiers' brain. 

“How can you say that? How can you _believe_ that when it’s my sword in your stomach that is killing you? You’re still young, Jaskier! You should be angry, be angry at me, please!” Geralts' voice begins to crack as it gets louder, ending in the most ardent yell Jaskier thinks he’s ever heard from him. 

“I stepped behind you in the middle of a fight… my fault.” 

“None of this is your fault Jaskier! I-” 

“Stop yelling, Geralt. Just, hold me.” The grip around him tightens and he’s sure it would feel like an anchor if it didn’t already feel like he was three feet above his own body. He’s been held by Geraly before, on cold nights when it was practical, when he was wounded and needed to get to a healer, but never like this. He’s never been _embraced_ by Geralt, despite using nearly every waking minute trying to will it into existence. Until now- and though dying is less romantic than he had hoped, the pain is blinding, mud plasters his back, it doesn’t feel peaceful, or fulfilling, or anything other than horrid, really- at least Geralt is cradling him in his arms like he’s something to be treasured. 

“Say my name.”

“Jaskier.” Geralts' voice is deep and husky, filled with emotion. So close to how he imagined it. Jaskier closes his eyes and imagines he’s somewhere else; a warm bed with a summer breeze and the ocean’s lullaby floating in through the window. The heartbeat next to his own relaxed instead of frantic, freshly washed white locks tangled with his own, stubble scratching the back of his neck… A final pang of pain distracts him from his daydream, and then there is nothing. 

Geralt kneels there in the mud for more time than he cares to know. He gently moves his hand to cradle Jaskiers' head where it had unceremoniously lolled back before standing and carrying his body to their camp. His lute still lies perched on his pillow where he had left it, and Geralt can’t bring himself to move it as he places Jaskier down on his bedroll. His eyes are still open, blue like ice. If Geralt went and sat on the other side of the makeshift fire pit he could almost pretend that Jaskeir was cloud gazing. He’d done it before, pointing upwards in glee when he saw something that looked remotely like an animal. Geralt looks up, just to check. There are no clouds in the sky today, having moved on after yesterday's rain. Geralt closes Jaskiers' eyes and gets up. 

He takes a walk, listening to the bird's dawn song, letting his feet take him where they may. Every breath is a battle against the shakiness that fights to return, but an uncanny calm has settled deep in his core. He’s surprised at how well he’s taking it, he thinks. He has coin to get for his work, places to be, monsters to kill; if he can just go back to his old routine he’ll be oka- a crow sits atop Jaskiers' body. He kills it with less ceremony than it deserves, then weeps as a drop of blood slips out of its beak, helpless and limp as Jaskier is. Mechanically he shrouds Jaskier in his blankets, before hauling him onto Roach and heading back into town. 

Jaskier is paler than before, stiller than he’s ever been, and quieter than should be allowed, by some greater divination, in order to maintain his name as Jaskier the Bard. That’s just the thing though, this isn’t Jaskier anymore. His sun-tanned skin is now as ivory as the cheap lard soap that stings Geralts' dry hands. He cleans the body in the inn where they had been staying, wondering why he had never returned the favor in life; Jaskier had scrubbed his back and hair more times than he could count. 

He wonders a lot of things, most of them twisting a knife that got deeper and sharper and by the second. He’d warned him, the idiot. Warned him to stay away from him, from the life a witcher leads. He hadn’t listened, but that wasn’t the problem. The _problem_ , he thinks, punctuated by the soap crumbling in his fist, is that he hadn’t _wanted_ him to listen. He hadn’t tried to keep the bard out of danger because he was _selfish_ . He was a selfish, the rag reddens, hopeless, the blood seeps from the rag into the water basin, disgusting, the rag reddens, witcher, the rag reddens, _monster_. Lifting the scarlet cloth again a realization hits him like a blow to the chest: the bleeding hasn’t stopped. The bleeding should have stopped hours ago. 

“How did he die?” Yen leans over the bed where Jaskier lies, red, fresh blood still seeping from the wound. 

“I killed him.” 

Yen’s eyebrows meet her hairline as she whips her head to face the witcher, “You would never.”

“You don’t know me Yen. You don’t know the things I’m capable of,” Geralt grits. 

“Like hell I don’t know you! Geralt I know you better than anyone, Jaskier aside. You’re no monster Geralt, you wouldn’t kill someone you loved.” Yen’s voice is icy, a warning hidden behind narrowed eyes. 

“I’ve done it before… and I did it again.” It would have been easy to retort Yen’s anger with more of the same, but in this moment Geralt feels nothing other than lost. 

Yen softens at the admission, presses a hand to his cheek and tucks a lock of hair behind his ear. She ducks lower to chase his eye contact, something entirely too close to pity for Geralts' liking in her violet eyes.

“Geralt, this is different. You saw yourself in Renfri, you wanted to save her, prove that people like yourself were worth saving, could be saved. You loved her yes, but you didn’t know her like you know Jaskier. Geralt… it’s been more than 20 years. You _love_ him.”

“I loved him.” The words click like the last piece in a puzzle that he’d been trying to solve for years. The heartbreak that feels painful enough to kill him, witcher mutations be damned, ebbs, then strengthens at the realization. 

“You still do. You don’t stop loving someone just because they’re gone. You’ll always love him, Geralt.” 

“Oh my god, Yen, I love him,” Geralt breathes, horror beginning to gnaw somewhere deep within his body.

“Shit, you didn’t know, did you?” The sadness in yens voice is palpable, infuriating. Geralt looks at her, eyes wild.

“I love _you_ yen! I love _you_! How-” A well manicured finger slips over his lips to hush him.

“I know Geralt. I love you too, you know this. But what we have, it’s complicated. We can’t know if it’s real or magic, and I hope and wish that it’s real… but Geralt, this love will never be simple. What you have with Jaskier, that is love that isn’t bound to a djinn’s wish, it’s pure, untouchable. I so hoped that you could have that kind of love.”

“How did you know? How did you know and I didn’t? Why didn’t you _tell_ me?” 

“I knew you’d figure it out eventually…” 

“It’s too late Yennefer! He’s dead!” He feels dizzy, sick. He reaches a hand to steady himself on yens arm, hands digging into soft flesh. Living, warm flesh with a pulse below it. It feels like a slap in the face. 

“So it seems.” Yennefer returns her attention to the task at hand, searching for a spark of life within Jaskiers' body. There’s something there, not enough to be life but certainly more than there should be in a dead man, but she’s not sure what it is. 

“How did he really die, Geralt?”

“Yennefer!”

“Tell me exactly what happened.” 

“It was a regular fight, I took some potions, went out to kill a drowner. Was about to finish it off when I felt my sword hit something behind me. Jaskier had followed me, gotten his foot stuck in the mud, couldn’t dodge my swing he-” Yen cuts him off.

“You didn’t kill him Geralt,” she says with every ounce of truth and comfort she can muster, “and he’s not quite dead.”

“What do you mean,” Geralt hisses. 

“I’m not sure… there’s still life force in him, but it’s not much. By all functional means he’s dead, but… it’s not right.”

“Can you?” The remainder of the question was spoken by the uncharacteristic bags beneath Geralts' eyes. 

“I don’t know. My gut instinct is that this is a curse of some kind, though I don’t know who would waste their precious time cursing Jaskier; he gets in enough trouble without any help.” 

“What if it’s me?”

“Who’s cursed? It seems unlikely, Jaskier would have died eventually; you would have had to suffer this grief regardless of how it came around, and I don’t know of any curses that could be put on you that would target him specifically like this. You’ve killed humans before and this has never happened.” 

“My sword.” 

“How?”

“When I was very young, I brought it to a mage to try to enhance it. She asked me what its purpose was.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said ‘Silver is for monsters.’” 

“Did she enhance it?”

“I thought so.”

“What do you mean?”

“She said she made it’s aim more true; improved its accuracy.” 

Yennefer's eyes widen, understanding breaking the dam of confusion. “It can’t kill things that aren’t monsters, but you’ve killed humans with it before, right?”

“Rarely, but if they were like this I would have thought I killed them and taken no notice.” 

“Do you know anything about the mage?”

“She was a doppler, learned that much later.”

“Silver for monsters wouldn’t have appealed to her then. She was clever.”

“Yen what do we do?” Hope is a dangerous, painful thing, but Geralt can’t stop it from bubbling unbidden at the realization that death had not yet claimed his bard. 

“We could find a vampire and turn him, he would succumb painlessly then, he would be freed” 

“Never,” Geralt growls, standing quickly to send the chair he’d been sitting on toppling. A resounding clatter fills the tense air and he begins pacing. “There has to be another way.” 

“Wording is a curse’s bane… are you sure you said ‘silver is for monsters’ exactly?” 

“Yes.”

“And she said it’s aim was truer.”

“Yes.”

“But Jaskier is mostly dead.”

“You don’t say, Yennefer.” Geralt spits, sitting down next to Jaskiers' blue lipped face, looking at the body with enough desperation to disturb even the most hardened onlooker. 

“Jaskier wasn’t a monster of any kind was he? Perhaps half-”

“No, he would have told me.” Geralt has never hoped more for something to be true. Jaskier would have told him, right? He trusted him, saw him take pity on monsters… would Jaskier keep such a secret from him? Had he deserved to know such a secret, regardless? He had hardly tried to get to know the man. Twenty years… Geralt groans. 

“If he was completely human, pure of heart and soul from monstrosity then he shouldn’t be dead.” 

“Jaskier is no monster.” Geralt hisses, anger beginning to brew in his chest. 

“Maybe he thought he was…”

“Why would he-”

“Human minds don’t always obey logic, Geralt. I thought I was a monster for a very long time. You still think you are, and I promise you neither of us are more monsters than each other.” 

“I told him things, I made him think that I didn’t care about him. Yen, I _did_ kill him!”

Yen stands and wipes the errant tears from Geralts' face before they have a chance to land on Jaskiers'. 

“Not if he isn’t dead.”

  
  


The ice spans for miles, its slick black surface dusted with fresh snow like sugar. Jaskiers' body is cold against his chest with the exception of the ever-present trickle of hot blood. Geralt carries him across the great plain of frozen sea like a bride across the threshold of a new home. Instead of a priest, Yen trails behind them in black. Instead of vows there is a silent determination that strengthens with every crunch underfoot. And a kiss.. Jaskiers' lips, barely visible through his wrappings, are blue. 

“Here,” Geralt announces once no land is in sight, “It’s time.” 

Kneeling down, Geralt gently places Jaskiers body on the gurney sled that had been strapped to his back after the wind became too strong for its continued use. Snowflakes adorn his eyelashes as he lies there, white against white skin, no body heat to melt them away. Geralt wipes them away with his thumbs. _It’s not fair_ , he thinks, _how beautiful he looks now._ He’d never appreciated, or perhaps more correctly, pretended he hadn’t noticed, the charm that rests easy on Jaskiers' features: A warm smile from the other side of a campfire, eyes that dance like moonlit ripples on a lake, rosy cheeks from the cold. He’d often wondered what about him lured so many lovers to his bed; by human standards, and certainly by a witcher’s, Jaskier was plain… he was _ordinary_. Geralt shakes his head at the thought. As ordinary as a dandelion in a lava field. Deep down, he’d always known that Jaskier was special; why else would he have let him join him on his journeys? Why else would he have wanted to join him? Nobody ever had before.

Begrudgingly Geralt stands, turning to face Yen. She takes a step back as Geralt draws the igni sign and a hole in the ice forms where the fire meets it. 

“I’ll need something.” Yen says as he steps towards the hole. Geralt nods briskly, drawing his sword and slicing through the plait of hair at the back of his head. Handing it to Yen, he continues to strip until he is left only in his tunic and trousers. 

“You better come back to me, Geralt.”

“That’s not up for debate.” With a roll of his shoulders, Geralt jumps into the arctic water.

  
  


For a human, the shock would be immediate. If their muscles didn't spasm and water fill their lungs immediately, the rushing current under the ice would have swept them away in moments and downing would have followed shortly after. Geralt is granted no such mercy. He can feel every inch of his body fighting against the cold; every muscle telling him to swim upwards. But just as witcher mutations allow for precision and control in times of survival, they also allow him to ignore his instincts. He needs to get to the brink. Is this what Jaskier felt like in his final moments? The burn of fluid in his lungs, a body's desperate search for air that is nowhere to be found? Or was it from blood loss that he met his end? Geralt shakes the thoughts from his mind, useless as they are. He needs to concentrate; keep his mind sharp as the darkness overwhelms him, needs to bring him back. 

It's a nothingness that’s just as suffocating as it is weighless. It’s an everythingness that drips with equal parts deep longing and a profound sense of being free. Just as color doesn’t exist to the blind and sound to the deaf, this place cannot be conceived of by living people. Every word that was ever said in every language is spoken, sang, screamed and sobbed simultaneously, but you can’t hear any of it. Every emotion that ever ebbed with the beating of a heart swells in an incessant crescendo, but you feel nothing. Time doesn’t exist here, eternity is no longer daunting as there is nothing to compare each passing, non-passing moment to.

A sense of melancholy fills Geralt as he drifts through this space. He can’t quite seem to remember what has come to pass; his mind hazy as though he had just woken up. He flexes his fingers (though he doesn’t seem to have a body anymore) rolls his shoulders and notes that the aches and pains that characterized a witcher's lifestyle are gone. It would be so easy to sink into this warmth but a distinct nagging feeling keeps him from letting go. He has something he needs to do here, and a sharp pull between his shoulders as though a string has been threaded from his sternum through his back keeps him alert. _Think_. 

Despite Jaskiers' loudly articulated beliefs, Geralt does a fair bit of thinking. If anything, he thinks more than the average human. Just because he doesn’t feel the need to share his consciousness for all to hear doesn't mean that it doesn’t exist. It’s a kind of prison, really; to be stuck in your own head, constantly being nagged by your own brain, without any idea how to express your thoughts. Usually they are quite streamlined; a continuous feed of information regarding his surroundings, relevant to survival. Occasionally, however, on warm nights aided by the swaying of Roach’s back and the soft strum of lute strings, they stray: dangerous iterations of “what-ifs”, sanitized memories of Kaer Morhen that make his youthful days feel more pleasant in retrospect than they ever were in reality, the remembrance of clever hands in his hair. 

He’d felt safer with Jaskier on those nights than he had… perhaps ever. Why, was beyond him, as the bard was almost always more of a hazard than a safegaurd, but these sort of things just can’t be explained, he supposed. As such were emotions, and why he wasn’t meant to have them in the first place; they aren’t logical. But now, without a body, with only feeling to guide him through this blank space, ignoring them seemed the illogical thing to do. Perhaps that had always been true. Maybe, Jaskier had been onto something all those years, allowing himself to fall in and out of love with abandon; feeding off of lust and heartbreak just as much as he did rabbits roasted over a campfire. Maybe if he allowed himself to _feel_ he would have realized the true nature of his affections earlier. Maybe if he allowed himself to _feel_ , he could find Jaskier. 

  
  


This place is temporary; that's the first thing Jaskier notices. Similarly to how, when walking in a spring field one knows come fall all the flowers will wilt and wither, he knows this place is too good to be true. The only thing tethering him is a melancholy that lingers in the air like smoke across a lake. Above him is sky, below him sky, and at his sides everything beautiful and wonderful. Shifting like a hologram he exists weightless in this world that seems built for him, if it is not his very essence itself. 

At first it had been novel, revisiting places he had traveled in a dreamlike fugue, being inundated with the finest scents and touches and emotions he had experienced in life, but a sense of loss soon made itself known and corrupted the illusion. No matter how hard he strains though, he couldn’t seem to remember what it was that was missing. He compiles an inventory of experiences, trying to group the fleeting hints at his past life into clear categories before they abscond him. Perhaps by filling in the world as completely as possible, he can find the shape of the piece that is missing. 

Cool water rushing over his shoulders, the crunch of soil under his feet, birsongs and human songs and an unusually soft bed: he had been a traveler. Soft breasts and strong backs, kisses below his jaw, the shuffle of fabric and giggling: he was a lover. Strings beneath his fingers, applause and a sense of peace, endless lines of prose: a musician. Hair beneath his fingers, a needle in his hand, rags softened with wear, chamomile: he was… he was… 

Golden eyes. A rumbling voice. Rare smiles with a glint of canine that made his heart skip a jump. 

Jaskier gasps, then a laugh escapes him, echoing hysterically off the fine white clouds. When the feeling of calloused fingers on his arm returns to him, he weeps. He screams until his voice is hoarse because what he lost is far more beloved than he ever could have imagined. And finally, when there is no more anger to be had, he sings. 

A familiar voice cuts through the pitch. He grasps for it, flails in the nothingness to get to it, but it fades, becoming barely audible. _A witcher. He’s a witcher._ Geralt things. He was built to track, to hunt. His lungs fill and his mind calms, the song becoming clearer. He thinks of grounding things: his blade against a whetstone, the sway on roaches back, a constant chatter beside him… him…

Tall grass sways in the breeze and Geralt finds himself corporeal again. Somewhere nearby a lute is being played, a voice singing loudly and shamelessly into the open air. And that voice, like a balm to his very soul is,

“ _Jaskier!_ ” 

Geralt looks around but sees his bard nowhere. He runs towards the source of the sound, birds fluttering into the air at the fields’ disruption. Then, his face meets the ground. Dried grass fills his mouth and he splutters as he pushes himself up onto his elbows. Turning over, he finds himself in a small clearing within the wheat field, blue sky above him and below him, two brightly clad legs. Attached to those legs, a torso: sturdily built with a blue doublet hanging off of lean shoulders. Attached to the torso: a face, sunkissed and glittering with fallen pollen. Mouth open in surprise and eyes: blue. 

“Geralt?” 

“Jaskier.” 

“Are you real?” Jaskiers' voice is reverent. 

“Yes.” 

“But I am dead.” 

“Yes…” Geralt says hesitantly. 

“So I can do whatever I want.” 

“I suppose.” 

Jaskier grabs the hair on the nape of Geralts' neck and drags him forward. Tipping off balance, Geralt falls onto Jaskiers' chest, forehead hitting Jaskiers' with a resounding thud. Jaskiers' eyes flicker back and forth, from both his eyes to his mouth, before slowly his eyelashes close. Until they hit his cheeks though, Jaskers eyes stay glued to Geralts', hazy and blown wide as if he’s drunk off the sight of him. A hand takes a hold of one of Geralts', where it is braced on the ground and drags it up his side before planting it on the black of his head. He leans his neck back into it languidly, lips parted and throat bared, prickling with goosebumps where Geralts' breath hits it. Jaskier takes a deep breath before letting a shuddering escape through his mouth. 

“Are you dead, too, then?” 

“Not really.” Geralt hears his pulse in his ears as Jaskier cracks his eyes open again. 

“How did you get here?” 

“I jumped into arctic waters.” 

Jaskier bolts upright, bringing Geralt along with him.

“You did what?!” 

“I’m tied to the living realm by magic so I can’t die, but I can’t stay here long.” 

“Excuse me for my confusion-” Jaskier gesticulates wildly, as he shuffles his legs out of under Geralt where he is kneeling over them, “But if you got here by being only mostly dead, and I’m completely dead- which I am pretty sure I am- I remember it,” Geralt flinches, “then where on earth am I?” 

“You’re only mostly dead, too.” 

“I’m only…” Jaskier looks up to the sky in exasperation, “I’m only mostly dead. What on earth did you do, Geralt?!” 

“What did I do!” Geralt shouts, taken aback, before he collects himself. She shuts his eyes, grits his teeth and waits for his pulse to return to normal. “I’m sorry for yelling at you.” 

“You’re sorry for yelling at me…” Jaskier breathes. 

“Yes.” 

“Forgiven. Geralt what’s going on?” Jaskier sounds tired. 

“You remember dying?”

“Yes.”

“Then you remember it was my blade you died on.”

“Yes, and I also remember that it wasn’t your fault.” Jaskier says, a stern quirk of his eyebrow punctuating his words. 

“Well, it was my silver sword you got stabbed with. As it turns out, it was cursed.”

“Naturally. Of course.”

“It can’t kill humans, only monsters.” 

“That doesn’t sound like a curse though, you only ever use silver for monsters anyways.” 

“Exactly.”

“Yes of course.”

“Do you understand what has happened?” Geralt looks at Jaskier solemnly, an unspoken question lingering in the air. 

“No, I have no fuckign clue please elaborate.” 

“Oh. Uh, well you died. Mostly.” 

“Yes, that I follow.” 

“So you must be…” grimacing, his voice trails off. 

“A monster.” 

“Yes, but Jaskier I _know_ you aren’t a monster! So something is wrong and I need to find out what is-”

“Geralt.” a hand finds his face, turns it, “Look at me Geralt.” 

“Have I done this?” His voice cracks. 

“Done what?”

“Made you think you’re a monster.”

“Geralt.. No…” 

“All the times I yelled at you and sent you away, Jaskier I’ve only ever… I’ve only ever cared about you. I’m sorry I never should have treated you like that. I took you for granted, everything you’ve done for me and then when you died... I just... I realized-” 

“Geralt, breathe. Breathe with me.” Lute callused hands wipe tears Geralt hadn’t realized were falling from his cheeks. “In and out, just like that.” 

“Jaskier,” Geralts' voice breaks on a sob. 

“Yes,” Jaskier whispers. 

“I love you.”

“Shhh, it's alright I forgi- What?” Fingers carding through Geralts' hair pause and tense. 

“I love you. I’m in love with you.” 

“ _Oh_.” 

“You... don’t need to return the feeling.”

“I love you, too.” Geralts' head whips up from where it had come to rest against Jaskiers' chest. Their eyes meet. Jaskiers' eyes are wet. 

“ _Oh_.” 

“Oh.” Jaskier agrees, his lips curving up at the ends before his eyebrows furrow, “What about Yennefer?”

Geralt huffs, “Yennefer, I don’t know what she is to me. I’m so confused, Jaskier. I’m so confused.” 

“But you love me.”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Jaskier chuckles, the sound coming from somewhere deep in his chest. “I can work with that. We can work with that. Geralt, I can’t believe you love me!”

Geralts' head spins, he’s drawn to Jaskier like a magnet. Everything is too bright, too loud, too much, except- geralt brushes his lips against Jaskiers’- _this_. This, he thinks, he could do forever. Eyes closed, everything fades away except for the thrum of two heartbeats. Jaskier kisses like he lives: wild and messy and passionate and Geralt, for a moment, is afraid. This feeling inside him, growing larger and larger, it’s trying to escape and he doesn’t know what will happen if he lets it. He’s afraid it might eat Jaskier alive, smother him and consume him whole. But Jaskier nips at his lip hard enough to nearly draw blood, and Geralt knows his bard can fight back. So he lets it go. 

  
  


Jaskier pulls back, and he thinks it might be the most difficult thing he’s ever done. Geralts' taste is addicting, lips spit wet and his. _His!_ But something has changed. They’re not in the field anymore. They’re not anywhere for that matter. Jaskier looks around and realizes that _they_ , in fact, did not exist. He panics for a moment before a wave of familiarity washes over him. 

“Where are we?”

“Closer to the surface.” 

“Where are you?”

“Here.” Cold lips brush against him again, soft at first then prying, but Jaskier pulls away. 

“You’re cold!”

Geralt hums, “You are too.”

“Why?”

“I’m floating in the arctic sea and you’ve been dead for a week.” 

“Oh well… how do we get back fully?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“True love’s kiss didn’t do it, unfortunately.” Jaskier hears a sharp inhale all around him, and he smiles in response, “I’m not part monster you know. I would have told you that.” 

“I’m… glad to hear that.” The relief emanating from his voice is palpable in the darkness. 

“You know something.” 

“Yen. She thinks, perhaps you _think_ you are a monster.” 

“I just said-”

“Metaphorically speaking.” 

“Oh.” 

“I know that's a lot to unpack.”

“No kidding. But I think she’s probably Right. Geralt can you hold me here?” 

“I think so, let me-” 

A comfortable weight settles around Jaskiers' shoulders, not quite like an embrace, but close enough. “Why do you think I sleep around so much Geralt?” 

“Because you love sex?” 

“Well, yes. But it’s also because nobody ever wants to keep me.”

“That’s not true. Why wouldn’t they?” 

“That might be part of the problem. I fall too quickly; I’m too intense too fast, it’s overwhelming. It scares them. And then when people go with it, when they start giving back the same amount of affection, It scares _me_.”

“That part, I understand.” 

“Mmm. So, I leave them. I’m afraid and I’m a coward so I leave. And I break their heart and it’s cruel but I do it anyway because I know eventually they’ll get tired of me.”

“I’m sorry. I made that worse; that idea. It’s wrong though. You’re not a coward, and people don’t tire of you, Jaskier.”

“No they do! They do Geralt! Because I’m loud and I’m obnoxious and I’m clumsy and foolish and stupid and selfish-”

“Jaskier.”

“I’m unlovable Geralt! My own parents didn’t even love me! My parents! And I did everything for them, everything they asked but I was too _much_ . I’ll always be too _much_.” 

“Jaskier, I can't fix this alone; it will take a lifetime. I know because I am the same. I spent years with you, and you loved me. You always loved me so well Jaskier, and I still believed that I was unlovable. But," warm breath tickles the back of Jaskiers' neck, a cool cheek resting on his shoulder, "please listen to me when I say, you are _not_ unlovable. You are loved by a war hardened witcher, a jaded sorceress and a child who should be distrustful of everyone she meets, but she still asks about you and Jaskier… you are loved by strangers in taverns and people who have only heard your songs second hand." Geralt takes a breath, winded, "You were _born_ to be loved." 

Tears drip down his cheeks hot, then burning, stinging and he is cold. He’s so cold. But he is loved. He is so loved. 

  
  


The trek off of the ice is difficult. Yennefer uses the last of her energy to haul Geralt out of the water and get his vitals back to normal. Jaskiers' body has atrophied too far for him to walk, and the other two are not much better off: staggering alongside him, using the sled for support. But there is joy, unspeakable joy, as Geralt looks down at Jaskier, shivering and alive. The tavern room is still warm, and they collapse in a heap on the floor. They sleep there, a tangle of skirts and blankets and furs breathing evening out late into the night. Once Yennefer regains her strength and “dignity” as she puts it, she leaves the two be, still pressed up against each other. 

“Dance with me, Geralt.”

“You can’t walk.” 

“I didn’t ask you to go on a jaunty stroll!” 

“There’s no music.”

“It doesn’t matter. Dance with me.” 

“I don’t know… How do we…”

“First-” an elegant hand guides a war worn one to the rhythmic beat of a human heart,

up to an unshaven cheek, then to a pair of dry lips; a kiss pressed into the palm, featherlight, “You hold me.” 

Geralt knees down in front of Jaskier, dropping his hands to the slight swell of his hips. “What next?”

“Next-” Jaskier tucks his head into the crook of Geralts' neck, breath ghosting against the sensitive skin there, “we stand.”

Geralt pulls Jaskiers’ shaky body close, one hand splayed across the small of his back, the other crossing between his shoulder blades to cradle his neck and does just that. Jaskier huffs at the sudden movement, but makes no sign of pulling away. 

“You’re right I really can’t walk.” 

“Should I put you down?”  
“No just let me…” feet shuffle for a moment before Geralt feels the weight of Jaskiers' feet on top of his own. “There. Now I can move with you.” 

“Okay.”

“Yes, okay.”

“Should I just-” 

“Sway.”

Soft humming fills the space, an old sappy tune that doesn’t actually have any lyrics. Geralt can feel the rumble of it in his chest and against the pulse in his neck, the tempo faltering when Jaskier takes in careful breaths, and he sways. 

\---Epilogue--- 

A calloused hand strokes across Jaskiers' cheek, and he tries to hide a smile in the pillow. “There are no words to describe this, Jask,” Geralts' voice is somewhere between a breath and a whisper. 

“Are you sure?” Jaskier shuffles closer so that they are nose to nose, foreheads pressed together, eyes closed since it’s too dark to see anything anyways. 

“I’ve never been surer.” Lips meet, a barely-there touch in the night. More of a reassurance than anything; a promise that not even the warmth and calm of the bed could take him from the man pressed against his chest. 

“Have you considered ‘love’?” 

A cold foot slides up Jaskiers' calf, eliciting a yelp, some rustling and breathy laughter. “Of course I’ve _considered_ it bard,” dry kisses follow the line of Jaskiers' jaw to his ear, “and it doesn’t come _close_.” 

If Jaskier could melt his body into Geralts' in that moment, send every ounce of his being straight to his heart so each pump of blood would be proof of this glorious ache that feels impossible to contain or describe, he would. Jaskier runs a fingertip featherlight up the divot of Geralts' spine, flattening his hand at his shoulder blades and pressing, grounding himself with the solidity that is Geralt. 

“You’re right.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for following along! This was originally published in multiple chapters, but for purposes of readability I've combined it into one. Unfortunately this also deleted the comments :( Know that I read and cherished every single one of them and it was your support that gave me the push to finish the fic. I love you guys, stay well!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for following along! This was originally posted in multiple chapters but for readability purposes I've combined it into one. Unfortunately, this deleted all the comments :( but know that I read and cherished every single one of them, and it was your support that allowed me to finish the fic. I love you guys, stay well!


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